The development of new forms of therapeutics which use macromolecules such as proteins or nucleic acids as therapeutic agents has created a need to develop new and effective means of delivering such macromolecules to their appropriate cellular targets. Therapeutics based on either the use of specific polypeptide growth factors or specific genes to replace or supplement absent or defective genes are examples of therapeutics which may require such new delivery systems. Clinical application of such therapies depends not only on the efficacy of new delivery systems but also on their safety and on the ease with which the technologies underlying these systems can be adapted for large scale pharmaceutical production, storage, and distribution of the therapeutic formulations. Gene therapy has become an increasingly important mode of treating various genetic disorders. The potential for providing effective treatments, and even cures, has stimulated an intense effort to apply this technology to diseases for which there have been no effective treatments. Recent progress in this area has indicated that gene therapy may have a significant impact not only on the treatment of single gene disorders, but also on other more complex diseases such as cancer. However, a significant obstacle in the attainment of efficient gene therapy has been the difficulty of designing new and effective means of delivering therapeutic nucleic acids to cell targets. Thus, an ideal vehicle for the delivery of exogenous genes into cells and tissues should be highly efficient in nucleic acid delivery, safe to use, easy to produce in large quantity and have sufficient stability to be practicable as a pharmaceutical.
Non-viral vehicles, which are represented mainly by the cationic liposomes, are one type of vehicle which have, for the following reasons, been considered for use in gene therapy. First, the plasmid DNA required for liposome-mediated gene therapy can be widely and routinely prepared on a large scale and is simpler and carries less risk than the use of viral vectors such as retroviruses. Second, liposomemediated gene delivery, unlike retroviral-mediated gene delivery, can deliver either RNA or DNA. Thus, DNA, RNA, or an oligonucleotide can be introduced directly into the cell. Moreover, cationic liposomes are non-toxic, non-immunogenic and can therefore be used repeatedly in vivo as evidenced by the successful in vivo delivery of genes to catheterized blood vessels (Nabel, E. G., et al. (1990) Science, 249: 1285-1288), lung epithelial cells (Brigham, K. L., et al. (1989) Am. J. Respir. Cell Mol. Biol., 195-200, Stribling, R., et al. (1992) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 89: 11277-11281), and other systemic uses (Zhu, N., et al. (1993) Science, 261: 209-211, Philip, R., et al. (1993) Science, 261: 209-211; Nabel, G. et al (1994) Hum. Gene Ther., 5:57-77) of cationic liposomes.
Although a variety of cationic liposome formulations, including the commercially available cationic liposome reagent DOTMA/DOPE (N-1, -(2,3-dioleoyloxy) propyl-N,N,N-trimethyl ammonium chloride/dioleoyl phosphatidylethanolamine), are known in the art (Felgner, P. L. et al. (1987) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 84: 7413-7417), a cationic liposome formulation designated DC-Chol/DOPE (3.beta.N-(N',N'-dimethylaminoethane)-carbamoyl cholesterol/(dioleoyl phosphatidylethanolamine) has been shown in in vitro studies (Gao, X., and Huang, L. (1991) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun., 179: 280-285) to be relatively nontoxic and more efficient than DOTMA/DOPE. Moreover, following extensive in vivo studies (Plautz, G. E., et al. (1993) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 90: 4645-4649, Stewart, M. J., et al. (1992) Hum. Gene Ther., 3: 267-275) in which DC-Chol/DOPE was demonstrated to be both safe and efficacious as a nucleic acid delivery system, this formulation was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.K. Medicines Control Agency (MCA), and has been used in two separate gene therapy clinical trials (Nabel, G. J., et al. (1993) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 90: 11307-11311, Caplen, N. J., et al. (1995) Nature Medicine, 1: 39-46).
However, the use of DC-Chol/DOPE and other currently existing cationic liposomes as vehicles for delivering nucleic acids to cellular targets are inconvenient for large scale therapeutic applications for a number of reasons. First, the ratios of liposome to nucleic acid utilized to form nucleic acid/liposome complex in the prior art admixture method results in the formation of complexes which are large in diameter and relatively unstable. Thus, none of the presently utilized cationic liposome formulations, including DC-Chol/DOPE, are designed as stable and ready-to-use pharmaceutical formulations of nucleic acid/liposome complex. This limitation of the admixture method requires that the user prepare the complex prior to each use, an inconvenience which requires special training of personnel. In addition, the preparation of the complex by admixture prior to each use introduces a possible source of dosage variability which hinders evaluation of treatments utilizing these complexes due to possible over- or under-dosing of the recipient.
Second, the prior art admixture method of preparing nucleic acid/cationic liposome complexes prior to each use requires that a dilute nucleic acid solution (less than 4 .mu.g/ml) and a dilute liposome dispersion (less than 50 .mu.M) be used to prepare the nucleic acidiliposome complex in order to reduce the chance of forming large and less active aggregates. This limitation makes it difficult to make small biologically active complexes without using less than optimal conditions, such as reducing the amount of liposomes (which causes reduced nucleic acid transfer activity) or increasing the amount of liposome (which causes enhanced toxicity). Moreover, the fact that the complex must be made in dilute concentrations is a significant drawback to clinical applications, particularly in the case of intratumor injection of the complex, since only a small volume of the complex can be injected in each site (Nabel, G. J., et al. (1993) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 90: 11307-11311).
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide stable, biologically active, lipid-comprising drug delivery complexes which are capable of being formulated in a high concentration as well as methods of producing such complexes.